Obligatory Disclaimer:  I am not a doctor nor breast pump engineer.  Do not rely on this article for medical advice.  I am only describing what we choose to do.  For the impatient, skip to the last section.

We’re expecting a new baby and madly scrambling to get everything together for the event.  You’d think with two kids already we might have our act together but its been six years and we gave away or tossed most of our baby stuff.

One item, our Ameda Purely Yours Breast Pump, had died.  We bought it because it was one of the few pumps listed as reusable…alas, made out of plastic it was not to be.

A friend very kindly offered their Medela Pump-In-Style pump to us which is really awesome since electric breast pumps aren’t cheap.  But if you google you end up reading very dire warnings about reusing breast pumps.  Some of these warnings are well intentioned from other parents.  Some of these warnings are a bit self serving from companies.

Here’s the FDA warning provided in many baby forums:

Only FDA cleared, hospital-grade pumps should be used by more than one person. With the exception of hospital-grade pumps, the FDA considers breast pumps single-use devices. That means that a breast pump should only be used by one woman because there is no way to guarantee the pump can be cleaned and disinfected between uses by different women.

The money you may save by buying a used pump is not worth the health risks to you or your baby. Breast pumps that are reused by different mothers can carry infectious diseases, such as HIV or hepatitis.

Buying a used breast pump or sharing a breast pump may be a violation of the manufacturer’s warranty and you may not be able to get help from the manufacturer if you have a problem with the pump.

OMG! HIV OR HEPATITIS! Most sane parents stop considering used pumps right there. Me, I kept googling. A reporter at U-T San Diego looked into this and it turns out that it’s not quite that clear cut.

First, there are no such things as “hospital-grade” pumps as certified by the FDA.  The FDA also doesn’t certify any breast pump for reuse.  The FDA spokesperson Karen Riley had this to say:

“If a breast pump has a separate breast cover and tubing, then it can be reused once cleaned,” she said, “but the pumps are not labeled as such.

And

“We have allowed breast pumps that clearly separate (no possible contact of breast milk with the pump mechanism) to be marketed as reusable with appropriate instructions for cleaning and disinfection,” Riley said.

So as the article states…pretty much the manufacturer decides whether or not to market their breast pumps as reusable and how easy they make to disinfect.

Gee, I wonder if it is in Medela’s interest to sell everyone a new $300 pump or let folks reuse perfectly good used pumps.

The Medela Pump In Style® Breastpump has an internal diaphragm that cannot be removed, replaced, or fully sterilized. Therefore, the risk of cross-contamination associated with re-using a previously owned pump such as the Pump In Style cannot be totally dismissed. Multiple use of single-user breastpump automatically voids the warranty of the Medela product. Each mother who wishes to express milk with a pump should use a clean, uncontaminated breastpump. This is the safest way to eliminate any risk of cross-contamination.

As for HIV and herpes and other viruses it seems they are less hardy than Hepatitis. Wiping with an isopropyl alcohol swab and then allowing the alcohol to evaporate seems to “inactivate” these viruses.

If you are using any Medela pump (new or used), I recommend wiping down the diaphragm regularly with an alcohol swab, let evaporate and then wipe down with water anyway.  Milk CAN get in there and you can get mold growth on the surface.  That’s pretty nasty and a complaint you see on Amazon.

Here’s the Actual Solution We’re Going To Use

99%+ safe isn’t actually 100% safe. Even assuming I got any viral contamination down to 0.02% some parents are still likely unwilling to take the risk.  Given that I wasn’t able to do the full cold water rinse it’s probably not that low anyway.

Remember that I said we have a broken Ameda Purely Yours breast pump?

The reason this kind of pump can be safely reused is because it’s a fully “closed” system.  Meaning the part that touches milk is fully contained in the replaceable breast shield.  You can never get milk into the pump portion and there’s no air exchange between the two sections.  What happens is that the pump creates suction which collapses a diaphragm inside the breast shield assembly…creating localized suction within the shield.  The only parts that milk can touch are the fully sterilizable or replaceable parts.

Ameda claims:

The HygieniKit is the only milk collection system approved by the FDA to protect against cross contamination. It also safeguards the purity of expressed milk from bacteria and viruses by keeping milk and outside air separate from one another.

The Medela pump generates the same amount or more suction than our broken Purely Yours did.  The tubing is same size so I plugged the Ameda kit into the Medela pump.  The external diaphragm in the Ameda breast shield collapses just fine despite some minor leakage and the combo probably works better than the original Ameda pump (don’t ask how this was tested).  Certainly better than when it was half working.

As far as I can tell (remember disclaimers above) this is a 100% safe solution regardless of how contaminated the diaphragm is on the Medela.  There’s simply no contact with the air used for suction.  Milk can never get in the tubing nor ever touch any part of the Medela pump.

You can buy the Ameda parts from Amazon.  I believe that the full replacement kit should work and even comes with a one-hand-manual pump as a bonus.  I’m not sure since we already have all the parts I need.  I may buy it anyway since our kit is 6 years old and a little worn anyway.  If I do, I’ll report what I find.

This technique should be able to work with any breast pump that uses similarly sized tubing for suction.

Important note:

This worked on the Medela Pump-In-Style 2008 bag model because the Ameda tubes fit tightly into the front face plate.  The Medela tubes are harder than the Ameda ones but the same size.  Newer Medela models have a different face plate but the replacement Medela tubes I purchased fit all of Pump-In-Style ones but the only model I tested (because it’s the only one I have access to) is the 2008 model.

The price at the time of writing for the replacement Ameda kit is $46 from Amazon.  Because these components are single user use they are not returnable if opened.  If it doesn’t work with your used pump you will be out the price of the kit although you can still use it as a manual pump.

Also, since my wife isn’t pumping yet it may be that the Medela kit simply works better than the Ameda kit.  Medela is a popular brand for a reason.  One, they seem to be built better.  Second, they may simply work better.

If that’s the case, we’ll likely go with just using the Medela tubing and breast shields since I already bought all the parts and opened them (again, single user).  For me, I’m reasonably certain I did enough to kill anything that might have been on that diaphragm.

Also consider, as stated by Medela, if you are reusing someone else’s pump the warranty is automatically void.

Links (Active on Jan 2012)

http://www.fda.gov/medicaldevices/productsandmedicalprocedures/homehealthandconsumer/consumerproducts/breastpumps/ucm061939.htm#4

Why does the FDA tell consumers that breast pumps can’t be reused? | UTSanDiego.com.

Can you reuse a breast pump safely? What is Medela hiding? | Medical Noise.

Are used breast pumps a no-no?

I my dislike for Android is not as visceral as MG Siegler but his posting shows that betrayed love is sometimes part of the hatred equation.  One thing I DO agree with…arguments that Android is “open” is meaningless to me given the power that Google gave back to the carriers.  Every aspect of “open” in android has pretty much been perverted by the carriers save for a full on fork like Amazon.

MG’s bitterness is understandable.  Google’s shift on net neutrality and jumping into bed with Verizon was a clear betrayal of the “do no evil” ideal.

“I think about these things everyday that I see positive news about Android. It’s so wonderful that the platform which helped cripple Net Neutrality and is keeping the evil carriers in control is taking off. Make no mistake: Android is now the carriers’ best friend…

All of this backstory knowledge fuels my rage. When I see Google talk about how “open” the platform is, setting it up as the foil to the “closed” (and framed as “evil”) iPhone, I want to scream and rip someone’s head off. It’s not only the most extreme example of being disingenuous that I can ever recall seeing — it’s nuclear bullshit.

Apple, for all the shit they get for being “closed” and “evil”, has actually done far more to wrestle control back from the carriers and put it into the hands of consumers. Google set off to help in this goal, then stabbed us all in the back and went the complete other way, to the side of the carriers. And because they smiled the entire time they were doing it and fed us this “open” bullshit, we thanked them for it. We’re still thanking them for it!”

I like a lot of the folks at Google.  Google itself?  Not so much.  I’d much rather deal with Oracle frankly.  Sharks are dangerous but their nature is obvious.

So I’ve been fooling around with it and thinking of ways I’d change the game aside from the obvious improvements (larger tech tree, more races, planetary governors, etc).  I’ll assume that Trevor (who sent me a nice note I hadn’t respond to…so I’ll say something nice in this blog post instead…like I’m enjoying the game ) is busily working on.

More on the lines of actual game design changes that affect game play.  There are two aspects of classic 4X space games that annoy me.  First is the usual management of a huge empire and many many fleets.  This can be somewhat minimized with better game features to help the player out.  Build lists, planetary governors, fleet rally points, etc. but it’s still a massive pain.

The second is somewhat related…the lack of terrain.  Pretty much by the late game you have the technology to fly directly anywhere.  Which also means that if you’re winning and trying to stomp out the last few colonies you need to picket or colonize every system so new colonies don’t popup on systems that you’ve already stomped.  On huge boards this is a pain in the rear.

The other aspect of lack of terrain is the lack of choke points and the nebulous nature of where your empire’s borders really are.  The enemy can always fly past your “frontier” systems and hit your “core” systems.  There are no critical systems, they’re pretty much all equally critical in the end game since most will have all the planetary improvements and generate the same general amount of ships and money.

So what would I do different?  I think I would play with the concept of ship maintenance to limit fleet sizes.  Then I’d move to a “warp lines” based game map.  I might also consider using the concept of critical materials (warp crystals or whatever) so that some systems have great value either from geography (choke point) or material wealth that conveys significant strategic advantage.   I’d probably make every homeworld have this material by default.

Then I’d playtest the hell out of it to see if these were positive or negative changes to gameplay.

Dang, I wonder if he’d license me the engine.

Meh, I disagree with Scoble that it’s too late for Microsoft…they still have a few cards in their hands they can play even though there’s no real indication that they will do so.

There are still a lot of enterprise users of BB and I believe that MS can claw it’s way into double digit market share if it can show a better enterprise migration path to WP than to the iPhone or Android on this basis alone.

Personally I would buy Good and tailor their products for the WP platform (preferably exclusively).  Given that MS also controls the other end of the connection they should be able to create the best enterprise user experience available…not just from the end user perspective but also from the IT perspective.

Then I’d look at implementing an AirPlay like mirror protocol in a little $50 device you can hook to a business projector geared toward flawless wireless powerpoint presentations from your WP device.  Especially if it also works with the TV in the hotel room and I can pair my WP to a bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

Looks like sharepoint integration and office integration is already pretty decent so these are already advantages for the enterprise user.

I’d support enterprise app development with deeply discounted or free dev phones for MSDN premium (or whatever tier) subscriptions.

Scoble is right that with such a huge advantage in the consumer market that going head to head against Android and iOS is probably a lost cause without a truly game changing advantage.  One that WP7 doesn’t provide.  However, the enterprise market served by BB is a far softer target and would get enough WP devices into people’s hands to see that it’s not a bad platform at all.  And if you have FB, Netflix and the usual apps it’s also good enough for home use.

Frankly, even as an Apple fan, I’m sorely tempted to make a Nokia my next phone purchase.  I probably won’t because I’d likely lose my unlimited data plan if I did.

Woof, pass the popcorn.  I guess when you call someone out for class warfare the gloves comes off and the return fire can be brutal.

Josh was wrong anyway and his outrage misplaced…or perhaps more accurately, placed to appeal to android fans…

This is kind of the game that is on the opposite end of the spectrum from the last game I played (Robotek HD). It’s an empire building game that lasts hundreds of turns where each move builds your (or not) star empire into the dominant behemoth it was always meant to be.

So game play is a bit deeper than a game where you randomly get robots based on what comes up on a slot machine. There was no documentation that I remember in Robotek HD…just a little tutorial and that’s good enough. Everything else you learn as you go.  Perfect.

When it’s a 4x game it’s not so perfect when there’s no documentation. Tutorials that show you how to build ships or move or whatever is only a portion of what you’d like to know.

Take, for example, combat. Getting into combat is easy enough…just move your fleet somewhere that someone else has a fleet. Say you win. Great!  But you now have a bunch of ships that are damaged to some degree or another.  Can you repair them? Don’t know. The tutorial didn’t cover that. Will they repair themselves? No idea. So you have to try a few things to discover game mechanics…like waiting. Then moving to a shipyard. Then exploring shipyard options. Then waiting some more because, hey they might self-repair only at a shipyard.

As it turns out you can’t repair them…or at least I never discovered a way to do so. More interesting is that shields never repair. Which makes you wonder what the difference was between shields and armor. Something a manual might mention.

It’s even worse when the user interface is more glitzy than useful. Take this screen shot.

These planets are different sizes (how many slots of improvements you can build) and habitability (how well you can grow folks on them).In the previous version this information was listed below the planets once you’ve explored them. Now they are (poorly) indicated by the planet icon. Can you tell the difference?  I can’t for size and not reliably for habitability. Not to worry though, the manual will clue you into the subtle differences.

Oh wait.

Now there are some planet icons that are larger than the others but they don’t seem to have more slots than the 5 slot planets in this screen shot. And the 5 slot planet (Uriel top middle) is no bigger than the 1 slot planet (Dragon – bottom right) depicted. Likewise the “Useless” planet (Athos – top left) looks about the same as the “Idyllic” planets (Uriel, Milokeenia, Dragon, Venom) and the “Habitable” planet (Azeroth). If you look closely, it’s a little grayer than “Habitable” planet which is a little less green than “Idyllic” ones.

Not that it seems to matter much. My medium sized “Useless” planet has more people and more slots than the tiny “Idyllic” one.

When I first started playing the game I actually thought my version was broken. It’s even harder to tell these apart on the iPhone than the iPad. I had played the previous version for a short bit before upgrading so I thought the missing planet stats was a bug (they existed before). Evidently it’s as intended. Of course, without a manual I couldn’t tell.

There are other little gotchas in this game, like the fact you can’t unbuild an improvement in a planetary slot once you built it. Things that would be easily solved with a one page manual but instead require trial and error to discover.

That’s not the kind of trial and error you want to have in a 4x game.

Worse is when the UI forces the player to play trial and error on which planets to colonize. You can’t clearly see habitability and slots until after you spend the money and time to colonize it. Then you get a nice big icon you can press and see what the values are. Not a big deal near the end of the game but a huge deal with your first colony. I ended up saving and then restoring if I accidentally picked a bad choice.  I could tell what were the really bad ones…they were brown (worse than useless? dunno), but the in between ones were pure guesses on size.

It’s a prettier game than the previous version and there are improvements to the UI. I assume that gameplay wise it’s better but the tech tree is far too short for a 4x game which leads to building stacks of the best cruisers and stomping on planets until you win or the computer wins. I’d guess you can have the best ship in the game by turn 200 or so. That’s actually really fast in a 4x game…you hit next turn pretty quickly in the early game and it typically will take 10-20 turns to go from star to a star close by.

Still I eventually figured most things out as there’s not that much to the game. Most of it was figuring out couldn’t be done that exists in more mature 4x games other than the planet icon problem. Even the simplest like Spaceward Ho! has more complexity and richness.  I understand it’s based on the strategy part of Sword of the Stars…who’s primary claim to fame was the real time tactical ship combat.

So I can’t give it more than 2 stars out of 5 in the current state. And it’s version 1.7 with a large set of improvements. It’s still more of a $0.99 game rather than a $2.99 game. That might make it a 1 star game in comparison to others.  Especially given that the lack of manual is compounded by the semi-dead support link and a lack of player forums on their website where I could have asked stupid questions.

It does have potential. Getting to and surpassing the Spaceward Ho! level really only requires some tech tree expansion but it has a long way to go to equal the richness of the original Masters of Orion much less MOO2.

Not surprisingly it also lacks any payout (which both MOO and MOO2 had) beyond a “you win” popup. But documentation is far more needed than that kind of refinement/eyecandy.  A simple FAQ would do really.

Robotek HD

I like strategy games…especially lite strategy games since I have no time for long games anymore.

So I’ve been filling extra moments here and there with a short game of Robotek HD (Android, iOS and WebOS).  A robot “fighting” game using a slot machine mechanism to battle each other with rays, shields, hacks, etc.

It’s a quick game with simple strategy that’s pretty to look at, easy to learn and fun when it’s not hair pullingly frustrating (from bad luck, not bad design).  There’s also a little RPGish backstory with funny commentary about the computer nodes you’re fighting.  When you first fight you get little popups of encouragement.  I recall getting a little popup when I cleared all the Canadian nodes or something.  There are 200 nodes and 30 levels…so it takes a while to play through, which is nice.  Each session is short, which is ideal unless you get caught up in the “just one more game” mode.  Which I did once or twice and is good sign for any game.

Level’s don’t mean much to me anymore as a reward (too many MMORPGs in my past).  Neither do points.  I do like the popup messages with funny commentary.  And when I finish a game I expect…something more than a popup that tells you “‘Grats!…Now here are two infinite nodes to grind against for MORE POINTS!”.

Ah…no.  Now I’m not expecting an epic ending like in Homeworld for this kind of game but a little more would be nice.  Heck, I’d even like all the robots doing the hamster dance which would fit in with the quirky humor.  It’d be funny and be a nice little payout for finishing a game based on slot machine mechanics…

I hate to pick on Robotek given I like the game a lot but I’ve played a few games lately without much payout beyond a “You Win!” popup.  Robotek stands out because it’s based on slot machine mechanics and carefully metered out payout is key to that game.  It’s not that critical a factor but it does show attention to detail and refinement for a game.  Done well it makes the game a lot more memorable.

Despite this small shortfall I’d give the game 4 stars out of 5.  If it had kept the progress popups through the whole game and provided a nice ending I’d probably rank it 5 stars for this genre.  As it is, the last few nodes felt like grinding it out just to see the ending that didn’t exist.

Prompting this post.

Note:  I played the WebOS version and didn’t hit any long stretches where the random number generator favored the computer.  I saw quite a few stretches where it favored me quite a bit then a few games here and there where there was nothing I could do to win.  If the slots favored the computer it wasn’t apparent over 200+ games.  This was probably the #1 complaint on the iTunes reviews.

John Kneeland (and Dustin Curtis) makes the point that larger screens are less ergonomic.  Which is true for one handed operation but not “ever-more ridiculous” for all folks.

One aspect important to a largish segment of the iPhone demographic is eyesight over 40.  When I bought my iPhone 4 the retina display was freaking awesome.  The text could be very small and I could still read it!

A year later, not so much.  The text is still ultra crisp when really small…I just can’t read really small anymore unless it’s inches from my nose or in that tiny sliver of real estate in my old man glasses (thankfully progressive without the lines) where the optics aren’t blurring the screen into a mess.

Would a 4.65″ 720 screen really be that helpful?  A bit.  I zoom my iPhone now when I can and I’d take all the size and screen real estate I could get.

The other times I wouldn’t mind a slightly larger screen is for when I’m watching a movie on my iPhone.  Which I do when my kids are monopolizing the iPad when we’re traveling.  Probably 90% of my mobile bandwidth is going to YouTube or Netflix.  It’s also nice for showing a movie or photo of my kids on my iPhone to someone else.

So put me in the camp that would buy a larger 4″+ iPhone.  Especially one that might be 1920×1280…as long as it still fits in a pocket, I’m good and would trade that for improved one handed operation.

via Daring Fireball

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Update:  Evidently I’m not the only one that feels this way: Charlie’s Diary – Gadget Patrol: Bigger is Better?

Actually, been doing a lot more coding this past summer and likely to get back into some WorldWind development…probably on Android. I bought a TouchPad on firesale and hope that I can get CM7 on it someday but if not the new $199+ Lenovo tablet looks nice or I can buy a Nook Color and root it.

I’ve been thinking about what to do for the next hobby project.  I’ve written a small Android app for work.  Perhaps I’ll look to get back to some C# coding and do a small WP7 app or bite the bullet and learn ObjC and do a small iPhone app.